Kenya Airways, the leading African airline flying to more African destinations than any other carrier, takes pride in being at the forefront of connecting Africa to the world and the World to Africa through its hub Nairobi Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Summary

The incumbent will be responsible for the core activities of the Materials Management Organization, ensuring strategic development and delivering operational and financial performance through effective provision of aircraft spares inventory for scheduled and unscheduled aircraft maintenance in the fleet network, and within KCAA and EASA / FAA regulations and KQ requirements.

The role holder will develop long term direction and scope of the organization to ensure profitability and growth, driving organizational and operational efficiency value at optimum cost.

Responsibilities     

• Develop and maintain key supplier relationships to ensure performance delivery.
• Develop a strong communication plan while managing relationships with all KQ departments and external stakeholders. Develop key stakeholder relationships at a senior level with customer airline and service providers.
• Contribute to the development of annual business plans that increase profitability and shareholder value and be fully responsible for the development and execution of the Materials Management plan.
• To develop manpower and capital budgets in line with the needs of the business.
• Establish aggressive but realistic cost, quality and timeliness objectives for the business and drive achievement.
• Ensure effective inventory control and analysis through the inventory control team ensuring the effective and efficient control of stock levels are maintained using a combination of leading industry forecasting models and operational expertise.
• Deliver and control an effective stock disposal process for surplus stock.
• Support the departmental strategy to meet the operational, growth and turnover requirements of the agreed commercial fleet plan ensuring the requirements of KQ, and regulatory bodies are met.
• Develop internal procedures and policies to bring about a continuous improvement in working practices and key performance criteria in line with industry best practice and KQ brand and people management principles, with particular emphasis on KQ Way.
• Develop a strong communication plan while managing relationships with all KQ departments and external stakeholders. Develop key stakeholder relationships at a senior level with customer airline and service providers.
• Define and implement a full range of business process and systems support tools that will ensure an effective Materials Management plan can be followed.
• Ensure all business processes and procedures are detailed in the Department Procedures or Local Instructions as appropriate.
• Develop the long-term direction of the organization and to ensure profitability and growth, driving productivity and efficiency and ensure that staff numbers and supplier support plans are optimized to reflect fleet size and volume.
• Contribute to the development of annual business plans that increase profitability and shareholder value and be fully responsible for the development and execution of the Materials Management plan.
• To define and manage overall departmental budget.
• Support the medium (3 to 5 years) and long term (5 to 10 years) maintenance strategies for the aircraft fleets with a firm focus on life cycle cost management.
• To develop manpower and capital budgets in line with the needs of the business.
• Establish aggressive but realistic cost, quality and timeliness objectives for the business and drive achievement.
• In conjunction with HR attract, hire, develop and retain the best possible team ensuring that there is an outstanding group of employees with a common vision, sense of purpose and shared values who will focus on superior levels of quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction.
• Drive ahigh-performance team to ensure all outputs and deliverables are met in line with KQ’s long term and strategic goals.
• Full accountability of decisions within the Materials Management remit and full accountability of ensuring effective cross-functional and collaborative leadership at KQ BLT and Senior Management Teams.
• Lead and direct the management team providing a multi-disciplinary team to support the operational and departments across the division.
• Lead, direct, motivate and develop the Materials Management team to ensure that the agreed standards of performance and contribution are successfully achieved, whilst ensuring all staff receive performance assessments and clear objectives set.
• Ensure individual stake responsibility for self-development and training, ensuring that all technical, recurrent, professional, and commercial training requirements are defined, planned, and implemented in order to maintain and build the technical knowledge and skills, and to ensure that regulatory requirements are met.
• Set departmental engagement in line with KQ and the Engineering & Maintenance divisions objectives.
• Take personal responsibility for issues of poor performance, disciplinary and staff conduct. Ensure that decisions are in line with company HR policy and take account of all possible outcomes associated with decision making.
• Develop communication strategies while managing relationships with all Airline departments and outside companies, holding key relationships at a Senior Level with Suppliers and Service Providers.
• Ensure assessment of supplier’s assets and capabilities with respect to overall business strategy, determination of what activities to engage in with different suppliers, and planning and execution of all interactions with suppliers, in a coordinated fashion across the relationship lifecycle in order to maximize the value realized through those interactions.
• Ensure supplier management plans to deliver value created by contracting is realized (and get abit more), and benefits include increased visibility into our supply base (reducing risk), increased quality in products and service provided and alignment of our suppliers with KQ processes and corporate goals.
• Direct all activities of all functions involved in the ‘end to end’ Materials Management process and ensure it is developed and maintained to deliver effective material fill rates to meet customer demands at optimum cost.
• As defined by the business Procurement policy, either lead, guide or support negotiation activities with suppliers.
• Accountable for spares and materials storage and logistics at home base and worldwide locations that meet regulatory storage and shipping requirements, whilst maintaining the stock management system.
• Ensure the aircraft cabin and external appearance meets world class standards by effective provision of spares and equipment requirements.
• Support fleet management strategy for asset modifications, integrated maintenance programmes and reliability, and maintenance / work scoping policies to ensure high quality and fully optimized life cycle cost management that matches the fleet operating plans.
• Support fleet equipment and maintenance policies based on technical performance, reliability, and cost of ownership, with a firm focus of life cycle cost management and decision making.
• Ensure that the MIS functionality is used to full effect at all times to carry out the functions of the department and that the system is fully integrated into the department business processes.
• Ensure all business processes and procedures are detailed in the Department Procedures or Local Instructions, as appropriate.
• Ensure decision making that will deliver the highest technical standards, whilst ensuring safety and operational reliability, yet minimizing operational cost.
• Ensure that all regulatory and legal requirements, statutory responsibilities, and directives pertaining to the department activities are in compliance and that the highest levels of technical standards, safety and reliability are maintained.

Job Requirements        

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Supply Chain, Engineering, or related field from an accredited University. (MBA will be an added advantage).
• Ten (10) years’ progressive experience in Aircraft Engineering and Maintenance or materials management in a management role
• At least 5 years of experience working in Inbound Supply Chain or related field (i.e. Engineering, Production planning and Maintenance).
• Process Improvement facilitator training credentials on various discipline (e.g. Lean, kaizen, six sigma, WCO, TPM, TQM, SCO etc.).
• Possess training credentials on various discipline related to aircraft materials management, regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Proven experience in international product sourcing, inventory management, performance metrics, and project management.

Additional Details        

• Demonstrated knowledge in managing complex projects and changing priorities.
• Proven leadership skills inbuilding and managing large teams.
• Knowledge of KCAA/EASA/FAArequirements and Kenya airways procedures.
• Possess training credentials onvarious discipline related standards, regulations, policies, and procedures.
• Must be able to analyze, forecast and challenge logic of events.
• Demonstrated knowledge in managing complex maintenance operations.
• Experience of managing outsourced operations.
• Commercial awareness / Financial Management.
• Knowledge of computer systems in use in technical department.
• Knowledge of EASA approvals and certification processes will be an added advantage.
• Influencing, Management and Negotiation skills.
• Excellent communication skills both verbal and written.